Peripheral
by scratchmarred
Summary: What came, what went, what followed. In which Isaak considers his company.


**Dedication:** for Qingy because everyone needs one, and they're a limited edition.

**Rating: **PG-13 (please leave a note if you feel this merits an R)

**Notes:** various episodes, character presentations, and timelines; no specific order. Some interludes are self-standing, others make a point. Most don't. I hope that is warning enough, and all apologies for both the general confusion, and the hesitant characterization – first and last incursion in TB-land, to be sure.

**-**

**r e f r a c t i v e**

**-**

Let them go. Let them go as they've come and leave nothing in their wake. But sometimes, he is thirteen, his lips bloodied, his hands bloodied, and they're scrubbing the cobble prints off his knees, scrubbing the two dynasties of Hecate's runes in the henna on blunt cheek, scrubbing the skin raw, scrubbing the _sin_ raw, scrubbing and – _never again, God's Host, the Holy Inquisition –_ They say this once; he counts their footprints in that cheap, forlorn chalk, too soft, too quick, and he's smearing the white of it back in his summon circle already. Let them go.

**-**

**i n d e x**

**-**

The pretensions. The vagaries.

Dietrich, who is brilliant, but horrible, and proud in his butcher boy's erudition. If you can't deduce it, it's not worth knowing.

(When he's all young and pretty and an utter _doll_, Isaak lets him write it by bloodied hand, and on thin, cut-edge slips of old, dead-drying paper.)

The little things. The nothings.

Like a syllable.

Like the worm-filled picket-fence on aristocrats' ground that dogs resurrected in their hunt, rogue eyes, tiger eyes, fangs all a red glisten, the smell bitter, weren't you afraid, boy then of six-no-three-no-five, all the dirt on your sleeves, all their fear on your fear, that one cavity just a slim ghost, you kept tonguing it, humming the hounds their halt, pleading, pleasing, they used to listen, why won't they now, you're cold, aren't you, the fence's all a fright, and Dietrich, Dietrich, you never had dogs, _you liked cats._

Like his name.

And Isaak wants to say, "Slowly, you remember nothing. You lost that. You lose everything. You're human, and young – and a bit of a telepath. And knowing of others, you don't know yourself."

Dietrich's mind, or his memory, or the both.

And Isaak's reading --

-- bone dice: _two and four, one and six, three and three_ – it'll make its own wires and come together again – _two and five, four and one_ –

-- something's bound to break.

Which and when and where and why.

And _who_.

(The only time they hold hands, it's to Dietrich's slapping their fingers together, porcelain shards crushed in between, their fingers more torn bone than not by the end of it.)

**-**

**d i s p e r s i o n**

**-**

She comes with silver. "Eat!"

He keeps the fork, and makes a point to ask after the knife only, briefly, and with no second glances towards whatever is lurking among dishes.

Then, the first bite.

There is no scrupulous, conclusive indication that there's chemistry amiss; that there's anything for him to say; that the thing in his plate is lacking in more ways than the simple-minded blandness of an impromptu cuisine. Helga toys with her cup, coffee all a sordid affair of diet considerations, then laughs to see him in askance. "It's _not_, you know."

He cannot recall when last he has dined with company. "I didn't think it was."

But the poison's in the cheeky little grin, the obnoxious, despondent tilt of a hand, the greasy purple of her boa – such a tourist's souvenir, at loss of all imperium.

The first day, none. The second, none. The third day, none.

He does not know what to say, and progressively the menu increments in ambition. First course, second, dessert, sidings. Vegetables, well, now.

"Don't you find this all a bit unnecessary?"

Her perfume's too poignant, her colours all wrong. The lilac troubles light eyelids. "No. Now eat."

It occurs to him that the woman's newest plot is to fatten him.

**-**

**a b s o r p t i o n**

**-**

In the University, his fingers are the Devil, reeking of spirits. Unapologetically brutal; bruises.

He fails two classes on count of attendance, and a third because he likes odd numbers.

They tell him to either make something of himself, or go.

(Ergo, he fails Geomancy.)

**-**

**n o n l i n e a r i t y**

**-**

You don't look.

"Gabriel."

Laughter, once-Vienna's a cosmopolitan comfort. The Pear of Danube sickened the academic palate, left pebbles for paths, walked the ages. The urban aftertaste, don't you know? Don't you think?

And Cain's hand in his, mine, yours, Cain everywhere. Dragging. He calls out, cuckoo bird, "Cain."

Laughter, twice. "No, Gabriel."

These streets are long, these streets are lost, and baby, sweet baby, your wrist is a mess, your hand is bloodied, never knew his own strength, dragged you. White angels, white errands – and where did the wings go? He stops by a sweets' shop, when your triquetrum paints Isis' notes on lunate, when the ulna is screaming, when the radius introduces Osiris.

It's bleeding. Fuck him, you know. Your bones are bleeding millennia of temptation. Almonds, coated apples, toffees. He turns away. "Walk with me."

Unexpected. "Why?"

"Because you can't lead, and you won't follow." And his lies, and cold to the touch, and he's taking you down his path again, this is madness, this is Cain, this is his game – The Game – and you can't say no. Not really, you tried, it tore your lower lip.

In the end, no candy for him, no lower-middle-upper class streets, no sentience in strangeness. He's fond of a little café instead, and you pretend you come of own volition, match his step, aren't dragged again. And you pretend you make his order, and you pretend he is content, you pretend the soup isn't beastly overpriced, because come now, two gentlemen, well-dressed, one white and all-smiling.

He does nothing, eats little, preys on the alphabet noodles in what wants itself for soup, and sip on your wine. Old tang. Ancient.

"My brother," he says suddenly, a vocal notice of his handiwork, as he's removed every letter and placed it on the table (the waiter keeps looking; the cook; the little girl with her daisy-bed of a princess' crown, the one who said, "Mum, he a king? He'll marry me?" ) , and you can read too, you can read all the ABEL ABEL ABEL ABEL, you can read the decaying frost in your throat. _Abel_.

He's up –" I want more noodles, please." – and you'll pay, yes? Isaak? Please? Of course, dear. Of course.

He's utterly, childishly, blissfully happy, the table an epiphany of Abels and waste. Then he disappears completely, and next you know – you, you lowly thing, others have privileges more doctrinal – he's in Londinium.

You're all alone in this world, and Cain's soup with you, and it says, those few letters that _stay_, can you read yet, can you - " R – E – V – O – L – U – T --"

You throw the waiter twice his due, then you topple the table over. And you've not the thought of it, you blind man, age-worn satire of Tiresias.

You don't look.

**-**

**a p p I i c a t i o n**

**-**

There are few opportunities for civility, and habituation takes time.  
Quickly, Radu Barvon surrounds himself with humans: because he loves them, or hates them, or because they're so unlike. Soon, the popular theory among staff advocates a stubborn, if nonetheless innate need for penitence that all Methuselah share. It's the fad.  
Nothing is his: not the household, not the damask on his back, not the coin on his palm, not the hand holding it. Nothing, and one day, he brings back a whore.  
Isaak blinks.  
He's not there at the time, though he sees the tapes –  
( "I used to give me some blood to one o'theirs, said I was sweet. Not his sweetheart, mind, but that can't be helped, and imagine – me! With some proper gent! I ain't the sort! But you, my boy, you've got steady warm hands, h'ven't you? You're a real man, aren't ye?" )  
– then the body, skirts lifted, carnage, really – all dry, boiled meat, and every nerve bare, come black earth churned by revelation; greatness, true greatness rents his soul in seven pieces, thin like cutting, _puppets' strings_. He wants to touch her; he wants to _touch_ her.  
He stays his hand.  
Radu is the whimpering orphan of some demon or the other, locked in an office, screaming, tearing papers; Dietrich greets only by the bare, lively colour of thinning hair, and chewing on tuna salad – there's a moral in that; there's a moral in being the biggest and best and inexorably comestible fish, _There will only be one human in this Orden_ - and Isaak's shoes are new, and _there's a fucking dead whore_ in the middle of his corridor.  
He measures the body. "This is good leather."

And he steps over it.

**-**

Later, the whore's just rags and bones and cinnabar vermin, and Isaak wonders if the Darwinian conundrum isn't at its most exquisite: "The strongest didn't survive."  
Radu Barvon mourns. Dietrich rolls his eyes. Isaak prays for his shoes.  
But Cain never pays mind to where his feet are, Cain rarely visits, Cain trips over her rotting body – and suddenly, explanations are due.  
As always, they are Isaak's to give, and afterwards Cain's biting his lower lip and tilting his head, all wide gasps and white wonder. "… there are _killers_ in this household?"  
Isaak gets boots.

**-**

**a n i s o t r o p y**

**-**

We conversed often, we spoke seldom. We articulated perpetually. And now he was bored, boy-not-boy of nine-and-ten and ten-and-ten and one-and-twenty. He'd always be bored, the little thing. I couldn't say why. The imperative of a pronoun was a dazzling masterpiece of extravagance – and contrition. The ego made me less myself, added the sickening, fourth dimensions. Acknowledgment.

Dietrich snapped his fingers, biding leave. "Eyes, here."

"Two days ago, four hours into the afternoon. What were you doing?"

"What…?" Recognition, then a smile. "Ah. I see. Isaak. How stupid."

He wore the lithe, blue thing that he'd picked up in jest – a long coat with its own name. Rich velvet, the worst of cuts on him, and he called it _Esther_. How dreadful. I said so. "Never your colour. Yesterday. What were you doing?"

"You know as well as I do." He unbuttoned it slowly, cautiously. Far from him to hurt _Esther_. "Don't be dreary."

"Dietrich. Where were you?"

His hands in the air, "Around. I was _around_."

"And doing?" Thin breaths. Thinner. You could only maintain a habit for so long before all passion withered. Dietrich couldn't bring himself to mind the smoke, and now _Esther_ was giving him trouble. Some stitches had come undone.

"I have no time for –" _Three_ stitches. "And you hardly know these things of yourself, anyway. "

But I did. "Holding an interview, after a distinctly unfashionable delay, and over sordidly bad incense. Dietrich von Lohengrin, second of the name. What were you doing two days ago?"

"…biding my time before that stupid maid brought tea, she's always frightfully late, but it wont' do to dismiss her – she has a sharp way with blends, and doesn't mind the opiates and – "

I unbuttoned it for him. "Enough."

Smiled, ruffling his feathers. Smiled, as the suit coat underneath was perhaps the most miserable mustard, and there's a second morale here: Dietrich must never get to choose his own garments. Terrible shame for an educated gentleman. He frowned. "What, you don't like it now?"

"I said, enough." Dietrich, please erase the mustard coat from my thought and mind. A red padding – now, now.

"No, now you'll hear me – this is enough and has gone long enough – " He moved quickly, untangling from his overcoat, letting it slip. _Esther_ lay between us now, blue corpse, blue riddance. We looked on, silently, for the better part of a minute. Then, "That wasn't you."

Stricken. He was _stricken_. "What… wha--"

"There was a man." Alexander Dovistaiarni, five and seventy, and useless as they could be born, all necessities secured. Rich Terran, rich future, rich failure. "You brought the corpse with you, hands broken. Do you remember that – "

" Yes, of course I do, how could I not?!" And he was screaming. I'd always entertained a private loathing for people taking unbecoming familiarities with my person. Hands. Off. Or cut off. Simple verbal particles, don't mind the grammatical disembowelment. And Dietrich's fingers were wrinkling my coat feverishly. "_He_ – of course I do!"

"Dietrich, that was his maid."

"No it wa—Isaak – _Isaak_."

Exhaled. "That was his maid, and it was your first time there. A social call. He said he knew your parents. He said he knew you. Dietrich, and you wouldn't know how, or how he found you. You investigated – he lived alone, and you said he would not live long. Did you read him?"

He seemed to consider. Animals. Cage. I had a mind for hunting, now. I had a mind for game. "I --- I. I. I was – he was – "

"Who else would know the maid's habits? Dietrich, where did you end, and he begin?"

"Did I – do I – am I." And suddenly he was pulling too hard, and too close. I shoved the rabid dog off, sweetest _Esther_ breaking his fall. He'd not look away. "You – you always insist on this stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, _stupid_ – "

"Don't shout."

"It's – it's. _Dietrich_." Ah. There – _there_. Finally, the pathological paranoia that had long fuelled more tantrums than several armies' worth of adolescent trials and tribulations. Rubbing his eyes, his lips, his eyes again. He'd taken to a flush. I laughed. "Is it…? Dietrich…?"

"_Yes_. Dietrich von Lohengrin. And you're Isaak Fernand von Kampfer. And he is – "

Too slow. "Careful, now. We might be on someone's tape. Wouldn't our friends in the Empire want to know." A slight difference between what information we could part with in the name of satiating a general, harmless Imperial curiosity – and that information which would lead to further questions. The standards cameras placed in nearly every local residence hadn't survived the planting; what few extant mechanical bugs sharing Imperial frequencies in the name of our media whoring had come afterwards. I'd selected their locations: "Wave."

He wouldn't. He wouldn't move, he wouldn't look, _Esther_ a mourning solace. I offered him a hand, that he might yet come to his feet. He wouldn't take that either. "One. Two. Three. Four. And what follows is the – the – don't touch me."

"You investigated the maid as well. You investigated everything." Dietrich, how thorough. And control, now, won, lost, on par? A telepath's dilemma: to take on another's thoughts was to entwine one's own person. A nexus of being with several sensorial processor, but only one psychological epicentre… one personality had to be dominant, and one could certainly not subdue the source of information during a reading. The better the telepath, the graver his affliction… and already, Dietrich, wavering on his memory. Victim, Dietrich, victim, Dietrich. Except when you were Dietrich, you didn't style them victims, nor puppets, merely environments. Lord Dovistaiarni had been one such, and Lord Dovistaiarni now paid his toll to Charon. Of course Dietrich would supervise a mission – would know of the home, and the tea, and the maid.

"But for one second, you can't have said so." Relieved, but no tears. Stupid boy, bothering _Esther_.

**-**

Afterwards, whole hours later, "You… does… _he_ know?"

"You're still alive."

"_He_ can't know." Pause. "Isaak. He _won't_ know."

And he's long realized, it's never _**Contra**_ Mundi.

**-**

**p o l a r i t y**

**-**

She's tried everything, every trick in the book – arsenic, hints of silver - every allergen that might invite a reaction of any species. There's nothing.

"Is black slimming?" He's broken her knuckles and sewn them with hair string; they come undone when she screams, when little needles bite at the inner membrane on the skin off her ribs, when he's sculpting out the bone.

Scientifically, Helga bothers him in the way that calluses often do, the afterthought of a childhood nuisance. She will bear through the pain, but not the humiliation; and she will not tell the tale, because the war waged was her own first – a timeless abstraction, but a generous courtesy. He _kisses_ for compensation, "I don't like cake."

**-**

**h o m o g e n e i t y**

**-**

They're too good, with their blind brandy, their half-smiles, their intoxication. They're too good, and their Masters _hate_ it.

"You've failed again." Isaak's company always leaves him in a haze of bourgeoisie stupor: second-hand, third-rate, asking. This time, he nods, "Oh no. I've won – I've won."

But then the questions do come, the questions follow in the auditorium, eat his pleura in the hallways, suffocate him. The questions have him wake fires in the great University library, incendium over parchment and paper and technological records.

All the lost data, all the lost time. They're two exceptional men, and ennui everywhere, everywhere but for fire, everyone looking. He can't bear the purposefulness. He can't bear the lack thereof.

And Isaak says he says he says he says said had will say –

"Do something – anything - _do_ something."

So William fails Geomancy too.

**-**

**d e n s i t y**

**-**

Radu's loathing for Terrans is temporary and circumstantial. He comes to love them, Isaak and Dietrich bearing horrified witness. And Isaak has heard of the habits of those who exchange leashes, how they will hoard clothing, or rank, or master's kind words, or insane drivels – he has not heard of a one who will gather street urchins for display.

"See," and Radu pinches the faint, sickly cheek, drawing the skin out for proper show. This first boy can't be seven yet, too dirty by far, still clinging faithfully to a sliver of bread. "I gave him that piece, and he's got brothers, and he ate it on his own." Then happily, Radu calls out on a girl, her skirts ragged, already a pubescent prostitute. "Her mother died in her labour. A kin slayer, no less! And this one –"

They go on for the hour, twenty children in array, twenty tales of treachery. He's satisfied. In great humour. Radu Barvon won't stop smiling. Dietrich looks on, blankly and stupidly. "….I've made him mad, somehow. Isaak, this is quite bad. I made him mad."

Two and four, one and six, three and three – the vertical, the horizontal, the bisectors, the summon. Isaak's circle is drawn before Radu's smile leaves him, and the tip of his cigarillo faces each child as he calls fifteen of the twenty forward. "You. Come here, in this circle. You've no choice in it."

Waking steps, hesitant. They do. Then Isaak shrugs, "Everyone in this circle will die. You lot – the rest of you. You've a choice. You can go with them, or walk away. It doesn't matter to me. These ones are dying."

It's truth, when he says it, not threat, and none of them move away. None from the circle, and one by one, the other five join them. Radu Barvon is beside himself, clawing at air, stopping his protégée, "You idiot, he'll kill you – he will – you don't know him, he – "

The boy's all wrenched guts and pallor, shaking him away, "You gonna beat me? Well, get it done already."

And he walks forward.

They're Dietrich's to kill – and the morale, tuna, is…? – Dietrich who does it unquestioningly and unerringly and painlessly, not because of their youth, but since can.

There's something lost on Radu. Another missing link. A tear or three, or this madness Dietrich speaks of. "Why… like sheep… "

"Australopithecus." Isaak has a panoply of philosophers he can cite, and several literati, some of which obscene. After all, the overarching stereotype of solitude and alienation has idled far too long in pornography. But it's Radu, and not worth the bother, so with a pat on such noble Methuselah back, "I think not."

**-**

**r e f l e c t i v e**

**-**

About the whore in their corridor. There's something they don't know.

Radu's still a frivolous mess, Dietrich's slurs are coming and going: poor French, worse Greek, the most horrendous Persian. Backs turned (never do), whispering, not looking. Isaak is, of course. Habit. Precedence. Hierarchy. And the practical excuse of etiquette, trying to light his smoke where it won't blight his company's eyes, at the most convenient angle. He can see their illustrious leader in all of this – and near her, Cain.

Cain, who closes her eyes and waves the cross sign.

Cain, who laughs. _Dear God, Thou Art Corpse in Thy Heaven, Thou Art Host in Thine Flesh, Thou Art broken._

Isaak burns his fingers.

**-**

**Author's note, part deux:** I maintain that you can get Ox and Oy coordinates from dice scores, draw straight lines, and do your geomancy reading from there. I also maintain that this would be stupid and uncommon practice.

There are so many faults with the characterization in this that I can't even bring myself to disclaim them. Needless to say, Dietrich's problem with telepathy (his telepathy altogether) and Radu's obsession with finding others who justify betrayal? Pure assumptions. Likewise, Isaak's understanding of genius' futility. Somehow, I feel there's no need to excuse Cain's tripping over anyone's corpse.

Australopithecus - early hominids. Never been one for much biology, least of all the theory of evolution, but I do believe it's general consensus that we evolved from these things? Please feel free to correct.


End file.
